Choosing The Right Career after class X

For students of class X , finding the right stream is one of the major challenges they have to endure for making a successful professional life and owing to the high priority this decision has on their lives, students would naturally be under tremendous pressure. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has taken the decision to provide counseling for students at secondary school level to guide them on which stream or subjects they could follow. There are various ways in which students could decide on which career path they should choose which are mentioned below.

Being aware of self: This could be stated as the first stage in the quest for the right career which would include knowing your passions, talents and skills at the least. Students should do a strength-weakness analysis in the best possible manner while choosing the proper stream.

Consult with the tutors and mentors: To help students from making illogical decisions, it is advisable that they could take guidance from their mentors and tutors who have expertise about various domains. There have been instances where students could not follow their area of interest and gave into their parents or peer influence. It is hence very important for students to have a healthy discussion with their parents about the importance of following one‘s passion to excel in any field of activity.

Take help from a career counselor: The best part regarding taking advice from a career counselor is the fact they run different tests for the students designed scientifically and devised to help students to find the right stream after class X. Also, students could take part in educational fairs, career guidance and seminars and so on to get an idea about the available career choices for them which would help them to pick the one that suits their interests.

Make decisions and take action: This could be termed as the last stage for choosing a stream. While deciding the career, students would receive inputs from different people viz. from tutors to fellow students but in the end the decision has to be taken by the students themselves. Simply put, there is no bad or good career choice and there are plenty of opening in different fields. Hence students should choose and do their best.

Coming back to the CBSE’s career counseling, the counselors would themselves sit with the students who would guide them on the career preferences available and the opportunities available for every stream. The decision in this regard was made after a combined meeting of all the stakeholders including officials from CBSE, Union Ministry of HRD approved the plan.

Once students have finished their class X they have to choose between different streams like Commerce, Arts and Science for higher level studies. It would not be viable for students to change their stream after class XI even though there is an initial window of six months granted to the student.

Owing to the pressure from family or peers, students were not able to choose their stream on their own and the board had earlier received a lot of feedback from teachers. Hence the board had decided to go forward with providing counseling to the students.